Biz & IT —

WinFX becomes the .NET Framework 3.0

Microsoft has renamed WinFX to the .NET Framework 3. rebranding?

On Friday, Microsoft announced that WinFX will now be known as the .NET Framework 3.0. According to Somasegar's Weblog, Microsoft decided to rename the product in order to keep continuity with previous development frameworks.

The .NET Framework has always been at the core of WinFX, but the WinFX brand didn’t convey this. The WinFX brand helped us introduce the incredible innovations in terms of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and the newly christened Windows CardSpace (WCS) formerly known under the codename "InfoCard." The brand also created an unnatural discontinuity between previous versions of our framework and the current version.

Although the .NET Framework 3.0 will ship with Windows Vista, it will also be available for Windows XP and Windows 2003. Plus, it will still encompass .NET Framework 2.0 components and new technologies such as the Windows Presentation Foundation, the Windows Communication Foundation, and the Windows CardSpace. Essentially, the renaming is just that: a renaming. Nothing else has changed throughout the WinFX technology.

WinFX's name change to .NET Framework 3.0 will not affect its ship date.